1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to systems and methods for displaying movies, advertising, and alternative content, and, more particularly, to software, systems and methods for selling access to presentation times in a media stream before the media stream is constructed.
2. Relevant Background
Presenting information using television, radio, the Internet, movies and the like is a prevailing mode for mass communication. These communication modes allow the presentation of recorded material, live material, and mixtures of recorded and live materials. At a basic level, each of these communication modes enables the presentation of a stream of information in a particular sequence. The impact of a particular message on a recipient is affected by various factors including the timing of the presentation, place of the presentation, and the proximity (both time and location) of other content items that are presented near a particular message. As a result, the message communicated by a particular content item is determined not only by its own content, but by the context in which it is presented.
Media buyers such as content providers, advertisers and advertising agencies are presented with an ever increasing number of options to present material. Traditional media such as television and radio broadcasting have experienced a growth in the number of broadcasters, and, thus, the number of presentation opportunities they offer. While this growth has made the processes of buying and selling “media spots” more complex, these traditional media channels have well-developed systems for rating and pricing time slots throughout the day. These ratings are largely based on historical information. Media purchases rely on carefully planned schedules that specify when primary content, such as entertainment programs, will be presented so that the rating and pricing information is valid. Because schedules are planned weeks or months in advance the important context variables (e.g., program ratings and demographics) are largely, although not completely, known when the media buyer is selecting placement for a particular content item. In other words, the “inventory” of available spots in which to place a content item is known well in advance, making it possible to buy and sell the available spots.
More recently, the large installed base of theatres has been seen as an opportunity for presenting richer and more varied types of content to theatre audiences. Film-based entertainment such as movies, live events combined with film features, and the like remain an important vehicle for entertainment and education throughout the world. The ambiance of a theatre is what continues to draw audiences even though many other venues for watching movies exist. The ambience created by lighting, sound, seating, picture quality, and other factors contribute to a unique entertainment environment that continues to be preferred by audiences. As a result, there exists a significant installed base of theatres in the United States and throughout the world that include equipment and facilities for displaying film-based material.
Conventional theatres, however, have limited resources for scheduling and presenting content items from various sources. Because conventional theatre operations are designed to present a single film, sometimes in conjunction with digital content show advertising, they have not had a need for more sophisticated scheduling techniques. Examples of in-theatre presentations include a pre-feature slide show that displays a repeating loop of advertising slides, often interspersed with entertainment slides. The loop is started at some arbitrary time between shows and repeats until the upcoming feature begins. The loop repeats while the audience is seated such that an ad may appear several times before the feature presentation begins. Optionally, the feature presentation is preceded by trailers advertising other films, where the trailers are physically spliced to the feature film.
More recently, “rolling stock” advertisements have become available in which a short animated feature, film, or other moving-picture feature is presented. Usually, the rolling stock is physically spliced to the beginning of a 35 mm feature film. As a result, there is no flexibility to alter when the rolling stock appears relative to the film, the rolling stock advertisement cannot be repeated during the digital content show as can slides, and the rolling stock will only appear immediately before the feature presentation. Moreover, rolling stock is not well suited to present the wide variety of alternative content that is available.
In comparison to television and radio media channels, movie theatre scheduling is relatively ad hoc. A theatre operator may select which films will be presented at a particular theatre only a few weeks or days in advance of the actual presentation. For some types of presentations, the theatre operator may desire an even shorter lead time. Further, a theatre typically has multiple auditoriums and the selection of which auditorium will be used for a particular feature film may be constantly changing. Hence, in the theatre environment there is little prior knowledge of the environment or context in which a content item may be presented. As a result, buying and selling spots for presentation within a theatre has been even more difficult that with conventional media channels.
Hence, many of the advantages possible with digital cinema cannot be achieved without significant improvements in the way in which theatres schedule content for display. For example, even though digital cinema techniques allow a presentation to be compiled from one or more sources very quickly, content providers who wish to influence the context and environment in which their content is presented are less willing to relinquish complete control over the presentation to the theatre operator. As a result, existing efforts towards digital cinema follow a model of conventional film-based presentations by compiling a presentation well in advance.
It would also be desirable if digital cinema could be scheduled to more specifically target various audience characteristics. For example, it would be desirable to geographically tailor a nationwide business presentation or sales presentation to more specifically address each audience's needs. Conventional in-theatre systems fail to capture the value of being able to target the audience. Accordingly, it would be desirable to schedule digital cinema features in a way that targeted specific audience characteristics.
In view of the above, there is an acute need for systems and methods for buying and selling presentation times in a media stream, particularly systems and methods that can be implemented within digital theatre environments and other locations where media is presented to an audience.